#568 I Must Say Something (2025) Original Painting by Johan Söderström

64x84 cm | Filler, pine panel

The title is a line by the Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad. This is the third work I’ve created inspired by this poem.

I must say something
I must say something
In the shivering moment at daybreak
When space blends with something strange
Like the portents of puberty
I want
To surrender to some revolt
I want
To pour down out of that vast cloud
I want
To say no no no.

The words in the work also recall the Three No’s from the Khartoum Resolution issued by the Arab League (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, and Sudan) in 1967. It declared: “No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.”
Perhaps there is a lesson about oppression here: the response must always come as a threefold rejection, corresponding to Lacan’s three registers—the Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic. At the level of physical matter: no peace. At the level of pure language: no recognition. And at the symbolic level, where language takes material form: no negotiations.

Materials used:

Filler (coarse and fine) in pine panel

Details:

• Painting on Panel / Board / MDF
• One of a kind artwork
• Size: 84 x 64 x 5cm (framed)
• Framed and ready to hang
• Signed on the back
• Style: Abstract
• Subject: Abstract and non-figurative